


Passionfruit

by GulJeri



Category: LeatherFace - Fandom, Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Fandom, tcm - Fandom
Genre: 50 Shades of Dray, F/M, First Time, Gen, Homophobia, Implied mental illness, Internalized Homophobia, Lost Love, M/M, New love, Old Flames, Sexy Times, Slow Burn, addiction issues, anger issues, issues in general, old gay dudes, probably some violence/gore after all this is TCM
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:09:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22807633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GulJeri/pseuds/GulJeri
Summary: Drayton receives a letter from someone he used to know. The man is asking if he can send his addict daughter out to the Sawyer place to get her away from her toxic, potentially deadly, lifestyle so she can get clean and recover. Drayton would say no. He SHOULD say no.But he doesn't.Little does he know that he has just reopened a lot of his own past wounds, and that he might have to finally deal with them--and on top of that he has also opened up a budding romance between their tweaking hippie disaster guest, and his youngest brother.-x-Jethro E. Fenmore2230 W. Lariat Dr.Fort Worth, TX76006Drayton,Guess it’s been a spell since you’ve heard from me. It’s not because I didn’t want to write, or to show up on your doorstep—I’ve missed you something terrible all this time.
Relationships: Bubba Sawyer/OC, Drayton Sawyer/OC
Comments: 12
Kudos: 25





	Passionfruit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Toast Crew. You know who you are.](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Toast+Crew.+You+know+who+you+are.).



_I’m tired, so tired,_

_Lay down in my empty bed._

_I’m writing, still trying,_

_Words dry and there’s nothing left._

_And I remember the day I fell into your love,_

_And I remember the way we fell out._

_-Taylor Henderson_

_Where there is anger there is always pain underneath._

_-Eckhart Tolle_

The sun was beginning to laze low in the sky and the shadows of the vacant fuel pumps stretched long. The dust of another day was settling down and the relentless Texas heat was finally letting up some. This was Drayton Sawyer’s favorite time of the day. Rarely was he able to find a little slice of peace for himself, but when these evenings came along cool, and pink, and drowsy, they settled into Drayton’s tired old bones and eased the ache, and they settled deeply into his chest and with gentle fingers let loose the knot of worry and agitation that seemed to have rooted itself there so long ago that he could scarcely remember a time when he _didn’t_ feel it. Of course it would come back as soon as he was home and confronted with whatever fuckery his brothers had gotten up to during the day—but for now he was soothed and for these few sacred moments he could breathe without the feeling of being trapped behind his own ribs. For now, he didn’t have to look after anyone else but his own self.

So he sat on barrel out front of the station with his long legs stretched out and his feet propped up on a battered old milk crate. He tipped his head back against the building and watched the sunset down his nose. He took a long drag of his cigarette and held the smoke for a few moments, then he exhaled it, and watched it dissipate.

He’d used to smoke almost constantly as a younger man. He swore sometimes that was what had kept him from ending the entire Sawyer line when the twins were in their “terrible twos”. The ‘two’ part had passed eventually, as all twos must become threes; but the terrible part seemed to have missed the train.

When the boys were a little older he had stopped smoking at home because he’d gotten sick and damn tired of his cigarettes going missing. He knew the little brats were taking them but when he shouted at them they always lied about it—even though they both stank like ashtrays and Bobby always looked like he was about to spew. The lying had made him angrier: as though they thought he was to stupid to catch on. But despite any punishment Drayton had doled out for the theft and the lie, the cigarettes kept disappearing, until Drayton had finally given up that fight.

Now he only smoked at the station: first thing in the morning while the sun was just rising, and last thing in the evening while it was setting. He’d have himself two each time. It was a petty little ‘fuck you’ to the twins—one for each.

Drayton finished his first, stubbed out the butt against the rusting barrel hoop, and hung the second on his lip. After lighting the first he had dropped the matchbook into his shirt pocket. When he went to retrieve it to light up the second his fingers brushed against something folded and papery. All at once the tight feeling gripped at him again and his heart began to thud so hard it was making him dizzy.

“Whoa, there,” he muttered to himself. He drew the matchbook out glanced down guiltily at the cover.

The faded image of a curvy woman, fully nude and looking ready to be sexed up, gazed back at him. Her read lips curved into a teasing smile as if goading him-- _Drayton, Drayton, don’t you want me, hmm? Don’t you want to palm my heavy tits? Don’t you want to bruise my pretty lips? Don’t you want to lick my pretty cli--_

Drayton turned the woman away from himself quickly and attempted to strike a match along the strip on the back. He tried several times but his hands were shaking too badly to get it.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he grumbled.

He kicked his feet down from the milk crate and hopped off the barrel. He was missing the most beautiful stage of the sunset but now he wouldn’t have cared about the sky had there been a pig flying through it.

He swiped the dead cigarette from his lips and his that, and the damn nudey matchbook, in his closed fist and he shuffled back into the store.

He locked the door behind himself then went to the back to check on that one, too. Then he sat down on the bench in the back room and dropped the matchbook and cigarette carelessly at his hip. It was only him back there, of course, but it felt like eyes were watching him from every shelf laden with dusty goods, from the shadow of the pit where he often roasted goodies for customers, or himself; even the one bare bulb dangling overhead felt like a lidless cyclops eye staring right through Drayton Sawyer’s soul.

He curled over himself, back hunched, elbows digging into the tops of his thighs, hand pressed against his forehead as though he needed to reinforce his skull lest his brain fall out right through the front of it. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out around another muttered ‘fuck’.

“Time to be a big man, Drayton,” he said to himself, “ain’t nothin’ but a piece of paper from an old...” he gulped, “friend.”

He straightened himself up as much as he could and drew the papery thing out of his shirt pocket.

It was an envelope.

It must’ve been hiding in his pocket for a few days now. He tried to recall which morning he’d gone out to the mailbox and found it, but he couldn’t quite pin it down. Seeing that name scrawled across it had been like a horsekick to the gut. Then—apparently--his mind had decided that _that_ was far to much to deal with just then (or ever) and he had folded the envelope once, dropped it into his pocket, and promptly blotted out the memory of its discovery.

Now he forced himself to look unfold it and look down at that name again.

_Jethro E. Fenmore_

_2230 W. Lariat Dr._

_Fort Worth, TX_

_76006_

His throat seemed to close in on itself as he turned the envelope over and wondered if he truly had enough balls to open it. _Less than three hours. All these years he’s been less than three hours away._

_But you already knew that._

He had known it but as with the initial receipt of the letter his mind had blocked out everything pertaining to the author of the letter. Things had been easier that way. Not better, maybe, but easier. It had been necessary.

A mean voice growled at him from the back of his head.

_Just open it, you fuckin’ pussy. Open the god damn letter and remember that you’re a worthless fucking fa--_

Baring his teeth in a flash of sudden anger Drayton tore the envelope open.

_I’ll teach you whose a fucking fag. I’ll teach you. I’ll show you. Son of a bitch call me a fucking faggot!_

He unfolded the letter and with his insides roiling with rage and disgust his eyes burned over every word.

_Drayton,_

_Guess it’s been a spell since you’ve heard from me. It’s not because I didn’t want to write, or to show up on your doorstep—I’ve missed you something terrible all this time. Thought it would be disrespectful to keep pushing at you when you done gave me an answer back then._

_So, I’m sorry as hell I’ve got to right this to you. I don’t want to bother you, or make your life any rougher than it already is. But I’m running out of ideas and I don’t know no one back in Newt no more—especially anyone who would want to remember knowing me after it got out what I was._

_I’ve made a decent life for myself in Fort Worth. Started out with nearly nothing in my pockets, got a job washing cars at a little used car place. Worked my way up to sales, then manager, and now it seems I’ve got me several dealerships with my own name on ‘em sprawled across the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metroplex. Somewhere in between all that I had the hair-brained notion to try and do the normal thing and settle myself down. With a woman, that is. Got married, got divorced, five months later got told I was a daddy. Guess she’d been about three months along when she’d signed the papers and had been more concerned about how much alimony she was gonna get, rather than telling me I had a baby girl on the way._

_She stayed with her momma, of course. But I visited when I wasn’t consumed with the business. When she was sixteen her momma had enough of her wildness and sent her to live with me and Cletus. Cletus’s the cat._

_I’m sorry to say being sent to live her daddy, who wasn’t there enough of her life, just made things worse._

_She’s a grown woman now. Comes home when she wants to, which isn’t too often. Mostly she’s bouncing around from boyfriend to boyfriend, druggie friend to druggie friend, on the streets or in shelters when she don’t feel like seeing my face. It’s gotten so bad._

_I’ve tried everything under the sun, Drayton. I’ve sent her several times to the best fucking rehab center in the area. But it just don’t stick._

_I’m real worried any day soon here the cops are gonna show up at my door and tell me my daughter’s dead._

_So, I’ve been pounding my brains trying to come up with one last thing to try. Seems like she’s got to come off her whole lifestyle, not just the drugs._ _I’ve got to get her away from here if she’s to have a real shot at this. Thought about buying her a house back there, in Newt, or maybe over in Childress, or Lonetree. But the thing is, I don’t think she ought to be by herself. I’d take the time to stay with her, I would in a fucking heartbeat; but I think I’m more of the problem that the solution to it._

_I know it’s asking an awful lot, Drayton, but if anyone knows about the bond and duty to family, I reckon you would. If I didn’t ask you I’d be letting my daughter down yet again. Maybe for the last time._

_I’d be ever so grateful if you might consider letting me bring her out there. To your place. I know it’s a lot to ask, but this is my_ daughter. _I’d pay for her room and board of course, and I’d pay well. As much as you want—anything. I won’t bother you by coming out to visit. I’ll drop her off, and once I get word she’s_ _better, I’ll come get her. Or maybe just send her the money for a bus ticket and a down payment on place to live. She might just want to see the back end of me after this is all said and done. I don’t blame her none._

_I’m hoping this rambling letter here finds you well. I’m hoping life ain’t been too bad to you after all. And I’m hoping you can look past my mistakes and give her a chance._

_I should have stayed, Drayton,_ _irregardless of you telling me not to_ _. Even if it was dangerous, even if it was secret—I should have fucking stayed._

_I’m sorry._

_Jett_

The anger had been overtaken by the time Drayton was finished reading. It took him awhile because he’d never been the best at it in the first place, and then even longer still because with every line his mind was threatening to shut down.

It hurt.

Goddamn did it hurt.

He was still staring at the letter, and it was still trembling in his hands, but his eyes were unfocused so the handwriting became one big murky smear. Numbness, a deep sadness, and a certain sliver of madness were all warring to take him over. He grinned at the smear and then chuckled.

_There’s no letter. No words. There was nothing there at all! You don’t know no one named Jett, or Jethro. It’s been a long day and you’re tired and half-crazy with heatstroke. It’s nothing!_

He laughed truly then, but it caused his eyes to crinkle, and the writing to come back into clear focus.

He went silent in the middle of a laugh and traded it for a glare, brows drawn down heavily in anger, deep creases in between.

_How dare that fucker! How DARE he? After all this time he has the balls to ask me for a favor. THE BALLS!_

The angry shouting gave way to another inner voice that whispered in soft, delicate, voice. The kind of voice that let you know right off the bat that the man it belonged to didn’t have a wife at home, nor would ever want one.

_Of course he balls. Big, heavy, balls. Balls better than the ones you’ve dreamed of scarcely over the years in those rare moments when the sleep is so deep that even you can’t be uptight there. So deep that you can’t hide there. So deep—just like you’ve always wanted it._

_The nudie on the matchbox knows. That’s why she grins at you. She knows exactly what you are, even when you’re so certain you never really were, and it was all just some sick and misplaced teenage fantasy._

“Shut up, goddamn it!” Drayton snarled, leaping to his feet, “just—just--shut up!”

Both of his hands were balled into fists that blanched his knuckles white and smashed the letter into a crumpled ball.

“You! You! _You_ stupid bitch-hog!”

He wasn’t sure if Jett was the stupid bitch-hog, or if he was.

Probably both.

“You just to read the fucking thing. You just _had_ to you fuckin’ dipshit!”

He paced around the back of the store alternately drifting between a reality he had never learned how to deal with, and that little corner of madness where all he could do when things got really, truly, dark was to laugh about it. It was either that or lose his grip on sanity completely. And when the reality bit came to the forefront it made him feel sick to his stomach, and when the tears burned hotly in his eyes, the laughter would come again and save him from the humiliation of allowing them to fall.

At last he seemed to really ‘come to’ and found himself sitting on the floor in front of the roasting pit. When he got this way, and then came back to himself completely, it felt like waking up from a long nap that instead of being restful, only made a person feel even more exhausted than they had been before. He didn’t remember lighting the fire, and he couldn’t recall how long he’d been sitting there, pulled down into some hidey-hole deep within himself.

He remembered the letter but he was so drained and weary now that it seemed trapped behind a haze. He was grateful for that haze. He was too wrung out to try and deal with anything properly then, and his head was pounding with pain. He didn’t need to recall throwing the letter into the fire to know that he had.

With effort Drayton got to his feet. His hips ached and his shoulders slouched as though pressed down by a pair of heavy weights.

He put the fire out, checked the front lock once more, then turned the lights out and let himself out the back and into the night.

-x-x-x-

“What’s the matter with you, huh?” Nubbins shouted over breakfast one morning. He confettied the table with a spray of damp crumbs from the biscuit he’d shoved into his mouth. Whole.

“Huh?” Drayton looked up from his plate. Only then did he realize that he’d taken just one single bite from his own biscuit, and not even touched his sausage, while Bubba and Nubbins now had almost everything on the table cleared down to nothing.

“I said what’s the matter with you! You goin’ deaf, old man?” Nubbins paused to swallow and then leered at Drayton.

Drayton knew that the boy was trying to goad him. That was the look he got on his face when he was in the mood to get Drayton good and riled up. A little kid poking at a feral cat with a stick. That’s what Nubbins was. Constantly.

“You been actin’ funny all week long!”

“Ah-ha, huh-huh abba ha uh-hee ah eekah!” Bubba twittered anxiously and bobbed his head in agreement.

He leaned a little closer, timidly, to peer at Drayton through the eye holes of his grandmother mask.

“I ain’t actin’ funny, and I ain’t deaf either!” Drayton raised his voice a little in a half-ass attempt at shouting. He glared at Nubbins and on the opposite side he could feel (and smell) Bubba creeping ever more closely, round-shouldered and hunched, yet somehow looming. “Just… guess my stomach ain’t been quite right. Probably you two nap-haired idiots giving me a goddam ulcer!”

Nubbins giggled and clapped his hands together as if celebrating.

“If—if you start pukin’ up blood—I wanna see. Okay? I wanna see it,” Nubbins said. He was grinning so big he was showing off nearly every yellowed tooth in his mouth along with the cakey boarder of wet biscuit lodged at his gum line.

“If I start pukin’ up blood you’re gonna see somethin’ alright!” Drayton balled his fist and shook it in Nubbin’s direction, scowling. “What’re you doing!” he shouted, suddenly turning towards Bubba, who was mere inches from his face.

Bubba startled with a little pig squeak and shuffled backwards.

“Don’t you ever get tired a’smellin’ worse than a corpses ass? Don’t you ever ever get tired a’standin’ over people while they’re tryin’ to eat? You got chores to do—go on and get! Get outta here! You better be gettin’ them chores done, Bubba!”

Bubba patted his hands at the sides of his mask as he cowered at Drayton’s yelling.

“Ah-huh! Ah-huh! Ah-huh!” Bubba shrilled and he nodded his head so vigorously it was a wonder it didn’t fly right off his neck.

“Then go!” Drayton bellowed.

Bubba shuffled out of the room leaving just Drayton and Nubbins.

After a moment of silence in which Drayton simply stared moodily at Nubbins’ latest macabre centerpiece, Nubbins spoke up.

“I-if you ain’t gonna finish your sausages, can I have ‘em?”

“Shouldn’t let you after all the trouble you cause, you little shit,” Drayton said. However, he nudged his plate towards Nubbins. “It’s a wonder you ain’t even fatter than Bubba. Sometimes I think you eat more than he does.”

“I-it’s compliments—to the chef!” Nubbins said, stuffing a sausage into his mouth.

Drayton frowned.

“Don’t try ‘n smooth things over by brown nosin’ me,” Drayton groused.

He went silent again and attempted to shut out the noise of Nubbins’ loud chewing.

Drayton knew exactly what was wrong, why he’d been acting funny all week, and it wasn’t because of a stomach ulcer.

“Guess the biscuits were extra tasty this morning,” Drayton said, caving a little. “Had a little extra cash for once and decided to get a little half-carton of buttermilk. And it’s just for cookin’ so don’t you go drink it up or doing nothing stupid with it, you hear me? And don’t let your brother neither.”

“Okay,” Nubbins said, “ooh, are you gonna make us hotcakes one morning? Mm, bu-buttermilk hotcakes. I still—still got a little piece of honeycomb from that hive I found—e-earlier this summer. It’s the last piece, so I been saving it!” He laughed happily. “Might be just enough we could—could all have a little h-honey on top of our hotcakes!”

“Maybe,” Drayton said, “depends if you can act like a decent human for once.”

“Ah-I’ll be good. Promise! I’ll be real good. A-all day today. I’ll even help Bubba with his chores!”

Drayton doubted Nubbins would actually ‘help’. He’d probably just linger around and talk at Bubba and consider that ‘helping’. Still, Drayton had something he wanted to do this morning, and it would be best if both the boys were out of the house for it.

“Alright,” he said, “you’re promisin’ me you can be decent now--”

“Yeah! Yeah!”

“Then you go out there and wash down the side of the house, near the back porch. Your brother got one good out there last night while you was out at that damn cemetery—I told you _, and I told you,_ about that damn cemetery--”

“I won’t go today!”

“--anyway, he made a big mess all blood and guts sprayed on the side of the house—no respect! We gotta get that cleaned up before somebody drives along past the house and notices.”

“Okay!” Nubbins was so exacted now at the prospect of a treat for tomorrows breakfast that he seemed ready to burst out of his own skin. He shoved his chair back making the feet whine against the old floorboards and then he hurried out the same way Bubba had gone.

Drayton cleared the table but left the mishmash of dishes piled on the kitchen counter. He could get to them later, or have Bubba do it. This thing had been gnawing at him all week long and causing his moods to shift and shuffle from one extreme to the other. Most times, until there were any unwanted guests, or until the boys did something really outrageously stupid, Drayton could keep a handle on himself. But this week he had struggled and failed to keep all the pieces in place. He’d even stayed home from the station two days to sulk in bed, or walk aimlessly around the house, or to contemplate burning everything to the ground with the hopes he might come back in another life as something solitary and peaceful. Maybe he could come back as a stone on top of a mountain, the summit so high that no one dared to climb, and left him in complete blissful solitude. He could just sit there unbothered and watch everything going on below, without ever having to be involved with any of the bullshit that comes with having to live as a person.

But apparently he wasn’t going to take himself and his brothers out in a blaze. No, he was going to going to wake up yet another dismal, irritating, morning to make his halfwit brothers buttermilk pancakes with a few precious drops of honey.

Sometimes it made him feel a little better to have a purpose—to know that they needed him—and yet other times it made him burst with anger that they had trapped him here.

“Too damn nice to those shit-for-brains idiots,” he muttered as he took himself into his bedroom and shut the door. Even though Nubbins and Bubba were outside and preoccupied, he slid both the latches that he’d installed on the door, so they clicked to lock.

It was a tiny room but it was _his._ Sure, he had the station, but when he was home and needed his space this was the only place for it. Bubba and Nubbins, and Bobby when he’d been home, had the run of all the rest. Drayton had long since abandoned trying to implement that degree of control over them. At some point with those boys it just came down to being grateful that the house was still standing at all.

Unlike the rest of the house, which was chaos incarnate, Drayton’s room was kept immaculately. One might even say obsessively. Everything carefully arranged and neat. In here there wasn’t even a thin layer of dust coating anything. His bed was always perfectly made—except for lately, what with the funk he’d been in.

Before he tackled the thing he needed to do he thought he ought to take care of that mess first.

He took his time smoothing out the wrinkles in the fitted sheet. At one time it had been dotted with pleasant blue flowers but it was so old and faded now that flowers had all wilted away. He fluffed his pillow as much as he could. Turns out it was difficult to fluff lumps. The pillow didn’t have a case and it had gone a dark, dirty, gray from having lived such a long life of cradling a greasy head. Drayton flipped it from one side to the other trying to suss out which side looked the least-worst before deciding they were both equally as gross, so it didn’t really matter.

He was picky about the tucking, and folding, when he was finally satisfied with it he ran his fingertips along the stitching and the washed-out squares of the quilt.

Grandma had made it back when she could still see, and use her hands, and breathe.

“You seen better days,” Drayton said to the quilt, “guess I have too.”

He shuffled over to the old roll top desk that was shoved up against the opposite wall. There was a block of wood shoved under one foot to keep the thing from wobbling. The roll top was broken and could be rolled all the way up anymore. But it still went up far enough that it gave Drayton enough room on the scarred old desktop to write.

He’d scrounged up the paper and pencil with its missing eraser first thing that morning. Then he’d left them on the desk to wait for him.

Now he was here. Just Drayton and a blank piece of old yellowy paper.

It was time to give Jett an answer.

He had simply ignored it for a bit, and he wished more than anything that he could have gone on ignoring it forever. But it just didn’t feel right not write back.

He’d gone over things he wanted to say when he’d been laying sleepless in his bed at night. Some of the things were angry, some of them pitiful, some of them terrifying. But now that he was faced with the task it seemed like there were no words. No words at all in the entire world.

He set the tip of his pencil to the paper and began as easily as he could.

_Jett,_

_Sorry a bout your gril I gess. Things is more or les the same round here as they ever was. Still luking after the boys. Bubba and Nubbins. Bobby got shiped off to Veitnam. Gess if their was any Sawyer fit to surve it wood be him. Just hope the ~~idiet~~ ~~idyit~~ dummy dont come back any werse off then he alriddy was. You no you here on the radeo bout them boys comin back home from over there all fucked up. The last thing we need in this hose is even more fucked up shit. _

_Gess you been having some of that to with your gril and all._

_I aint rilly to fond of them dam hipees. Your gril kind of sounds like she mite be one of them._

_But she is your famly._

_And your still_

_Well I dont know_

_You fuckin asshole._

_I’m gone to regrit this._

_But dammed if I can say no._

_Your gril can come so long as she dont mind staying out in the barn._

_Aint ~~dess~~ dissided yet if your gone to pay me or not._

_Cold use the mony but Id be pised off it comin from you._

_Bring her up this week end. Mite as well get this dun with._

_Sorry bout my ritin bein so bad. Never was rill grate at it._

_Drayton_

Drayton folded the letter and stuffed it into his pants pocket. He didn’t have any envelopes but he could get one at the post office when he went to mail the letter—and he supposed he’d better do that now before he lost the nerve.

Once at the post office the letter was fitted neatly into a pristine white envelope labeled with the neat writing of the clerk. Drayton remembered the address but he’d had the clerk write it out so everything was spelled right. He wasn’t sure why because he was half-hoping the damn thing would get lost somewhere between Newt and Fort Worth.

Just like all those years he could have had with Jett between here and there.

Except that he couldn’t have.

_I know it’s asking an awful lot, Drayton, but if anyone knows about the bond and duty to family, I reckon you would:_ Jett’s letter had said.

Yes, Drayton knew.

Nubbins, Bobby, and Bubba, would never know it as deeply as Drayton did.

They’d never know just how much of his life he had given up to stay and raise them.

All they knew was that their brother was an angry old asshole.

Drayton had been angry for so long, and he pushed back so hard against a lot of painful memories, that he had blocked out much of his past and along with it the reasons for his constant irritability and the ever-bubbling anger that was always just below the surface.

Once he was in his truck he felt like crying but he didn’t.

On the drive home he alternated between cursing and hating everything, and laughing—laughing until his face hurt—as though his life was just splendid.

As though he had nothing to worry about at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I know the title is a bit weird--I suck at titles so I asked a song randomizer to pick a song. So, that became the title.
> 
> This is set shortly before the events of TCM.
> 
> This chapter the pov was from Drayton. However, it won't always be. The pov will shift between several characters.
> 
> Please comment! Comments make me very happy and give me a lot of encouragement to continue. I would love to hear from anyone! I promise I don't bite... unless Bubba asks me to.


End file.
